so jim, my question -- or peter, i should say, let's bring in peter here. my question for you is if you look at the vix, that fear gauge, last week it fell to its lowest level in five and a half years, what does that mean to you? what does that mean to investors and to the economy going forward? >> that's a very very important and critical indicator to watch when you want to try to gauge the market fear. the vix is really the volatility index. and when it slumps as it did last week, what it is really telling us is that there is risk appetite back on. now that may be a very short-lived thing or theme, but the bottom line is the vix did trade sharply lower last week. the result of the fiscal cliff being stepped over temporarily, the result of what we're hearing out of g.o.p. in washington that they will raise the debt ceiling without a large political fight in washington, effectively giving the market some room to move higher without washington standing in the way in terms of their bureaucratic lock-up. david: but peter the president essentially said the -- h